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May 21, 2014

BYU vs Utah: Hope Ya Know we Had a Hard Time

-- When will the tide swing back to the light?

BYU's 2013 home opener came against 15th ranked Texas, a team returning 19 of 22 starters and yes, the favorite team of the Mexicans. It was a game so anticipated by the BYU faithful that my co-fan Devon Smith had been pining for tickets and his wife's permission to attend the game since its announcement in 2009. I was lucky enough to avoid such begging, as the 2013 campaign hit my four-year rotatation of buying season tickets and because my wife doesn't hate me. So I went to the game and was treated to a show of amazement. Because I know nothing about sports and its random inner-workings I had convinced myself that this game would be the hardest of the year for the Cougs. Sure enough, the opposite transpired, and BYU turned the contest into a very literal runaway.

It was the first game of a nearly perfect home season: dominations over Georgia Tech and Boise State followed, Middle Tennesse State put up a fight before bowing out and Idaho played their part as roadkill. Still, the one imperfection from the 2013 home slate stands out as a truly wretched skidmark: the Utes prevailed again. Unfotunately the word ‘again’ deserves emphasizing.

Take a gander over this photo from Wikipedia. It shows the last 20-years of BYU-Utah results. Blue means BYU obtained victory. Red means ... well, you know.

I may or may not be colorblind;11. Two theories exist on the matter. Theory A: I am truthfully colorblind. Theory B: I never learned my colors. either way that appears to be a lot of red I’m seeing there. And you know what? I don’t like it. I don't like it at all. One glimpse at the photo reveals the aborigines have had the upper hand in this rivalry for the majority of two decades now and you don’t even know how much it pains me to confess those words.22. Remember when Harry had to write, “I will not tell lies” using his own blood? I went through a similarly harrowing, though less graphic, process in typing the keys that formed that sentence.
I could write an absurd amount on this subject, BYU versus Utah being to me what the inexhaustible gospel was to Neil A. Maxwell. And unfortunately for you I just decided I will. It is the offseason after all and beyond figuring out why BYU keeps getting the business in the rivalry game, I also just need to get some fan-boy thoughts off my chest. Thus in the coming weeks I anticpate giving sermons concerning the following rivalry items:

A)Mockery of those brain-challenged Utes who like to pretend the rivalry doesn’t matter anymore

B) General lamentations about not being born in the 70s and therefore witness to things like this:

C) An evaluation of the annual head-to-head recruiting wars

D) Specific lamentations about perceived officiating injustices that have befallen BYU in the rivalry, like I don’t know say …

E)

A history of how my karmic actions, including TV-viewing decisions have, impacted the game

and most importantly …

F)

The debunking of the alleged Max Hall curse

In advance, please allow me to say you're welcome to Bryan and Devon. To the rest of you, I'm sorry. This burst of football will be short-lived followed by another 3-month disappearance for CPA study followed by an eventual breakdown and return to this space. Til then.